We’ve heard of announcing shows the morning of the performance, but Pretty Lights is breaking new ground as the jamtronica act has just announced a surprise set at Brooklyn Bowl in New York City that begins in just a few minutes. Derek Vincent Smith was scheduled to be off the road until Coachella next weekend and isn’t supposed to play NYC until he performs at June’s Governor’s Ball Music Festival.

Tonight marks Pretty Lights’ first appearance at Brooklyn Bowl. Questlove will still spin his Bowl Train set following Pretty Lights. Derek will perform tracks mostly off his new album during the hour-long set.

I'm throwin down a surprise hour long set tonight @brooklynbowl 11:30-12:30 b4 @questlove i'll b rockin mostly trx off my new record, come!

Thursday, April 4, 2013 9:47 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@PrettyLights

Pretty Lights

The lineup for this year’s Electric Forest has been announced and mixes jam, rock and a heaping dose of electronica. The event is set to place in Rothbury, Michigan from June 27 – 30. As usual, the String Cheese Incident will headline and play a total of three shows. HT faves Passion Pit, Lotus, Railroad Earth, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Pretty Lights, Femi Kuti and the Positive Force and Greensky Bluegrass are just a handful of the many bands on the bill.

Also of note, the fest will see the return of SuckerPunch featuring Marc Brownstein and Aron Magner of the Disco Biscuits with Jamie Shields of the New Deal and Mike Greenfield of Lotus. Electric Forest will also see Umphrey’s side projects Digital Tape Machine and Cosby Sweater as well as STS9 side project Pigs On The Wing featuring Murph.

Weekend tickets are available now for $259.

Here’s the complete initial Electric Forest lineup…

The String Cheese Incident (3 shows), Pretty Lights, Passion Pit, Empire of the Sun, Knife Party, Dispatch, Lotus, Benny Benassi, Yeasayer, Beats Antique, Madeon, A-Trak, Tommy Trash, Grimes, HOLY GHOST!, NERVO, EOTO, Railroad Earth, Headhunterz, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Kill the Noise, Emancipator, FEMI KUTI & The Positive Force, Baauer, Noisia, Michal Menert, RL Grime, SuckerPunch ft. Marc and Aron of the Disco Biscuits, Jamie Shields of the New Deal, and Mike Greenfield of Lotus, Danny Brown, Greensky Bluegrass, 3LAU, Digital Tape Machine ft. Joel Cummins & Kris Myers of Umphrey’s McGee, The Werks, Treasure Fingers, Boombox, Future Rock, Craze, Le Castle Vania, OLIVER, Jeff Austin & Friends, Ana Sia, Pigs on the Wing ft. Murphy of STS9, Reptar, Nick Catchidubs, The Pimps of Joytime, Clockwork, Ryan Hemsworth, Just Blaze, Doldrums, Nahko and Medicine for the People, Robert DeLong, Up Until Now, Helicopter Showdown, Moon Hooch, LowRIDERz, Milkman, Samo Sound Boy, Twiddle, Tumbleweed Wanderers, The Stepkids, Manic Focus, Party Supplies, Cosby Sweater ft. Joel Cummins of Umphrey’s McGee, Christian Rich, Motion Potion, Bestfriends, Munson Meeks

The third annual SnowBall Music Festival will take place in the “majestic mountain paradise” of Winter Park, Colorado on March 8 – 10. Today we got our first look at the lineup as the initial artist announcement has been released. HT faves Pretty Lights, Portugal. The Man, Rubblebucket and Big Gigantic are all aboard as well as Zion I, Kendrick Lamar, Datsik, Flosstradamus, Porter Robinson and Crizzly w/ Lil Flip.

The event combines a music festival with a skiing/snowboarding event. All in all, SnowBall ’13 will feature approximately 65 acts on four stages, so there’s plenty more to be announced. “From the beginning, SnowBall has always sought to offer a unique experience, and to create something that hasn’t been done before. It’s incredible how many people who attend SnowBall ski and snowboard each day of the festival, and somehow still have the energy to experience the music festival from beginning to end, followed by the late-night shows until two in the morning. Our fans’ energy and attitude is ultimately what shapes the event, which is why I know they are going to love Winter Park and the vibe that the town caters to,” festival founder Chad Donnelly explains.

While Snow Day and Early Bird Tickets are sold out, there’s special Holiday tickets available for $149 a pop at the event’s website as well as VIP Advance tickets.

Earlier this afternoon organizers of the Summer Camp Music Festival announced the late night acts for this year’s event. Les Claypool and the Dead Kenny G’s will perform in the barn on the Friday night of the festival. Gigantic Underground Conspiracy, featuring members of the Disco Biscuits, Big Gigantic, Conspirator and the Underground Orchestra will play a late night set on the Saturday night of the festival, while Pretty Lights will be performing the late night show on Sunday.

The 2012 Summer Camp Music Festival is set to take place at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe, Illinois from May 25 – 27. As usual, moe. and Umphrey’s McGee will headline. Primus, Gov’t Mule and the Weir, Robinson, Greene Acoustic Trio are also set to perform along with dozens of other acts. You will need a separate ticket for late night shows and details about how to purchase these ducats will be announced soon. Not So Early Bird tickets for the festival itself are on sale now.

If yesterday was “tour dates release day”, today is “f’awesome video release day.” There were so many great clips that dropped this afternoon that we are doing away with the normal link dump format for today’s column to present some of the fantastic videos we’ve found.

Our first clip comes from the Pearl Jam Twenty documentary. PBS will be airing the Cameron Crowe-directed film on October 21st. Watch as Chris Cornell explains the camaraderie between Seattle bands that led to the formation of Temple of the Dog…

Next up, we’ve got Wilco’s visit to the NYC television show Talk Stoop…

READ ON

It seems like everywhere you look the music media is focusing on the tough times the live music industry has hit this summer. Previously hot acts such as the Jonas Brothers, Christina Aguilera and Kings of Leon are having trouble selling tickets and Live Nation keeps on announcing new sales gimmicks to fill empty sheds. We like to focus on the positives and there’s plenty of acts bucking the downward trend including Colorado’s Pretty Lights.

Pretty Lights Opening For STS9 @ Red Rocks ’09

We tried pulling tickets for Pretty Lights’ first headlining gig at Red Rocks on August 7th and got the “no tickets are available for this event” message indicating a sell out. Colorado has always supported home grown talent, but it’s still unbelievable to see how quickly Pretty Lights – the moniker of DJ Derek Vincent Smith – rose from performing at small clubs to selling out one of the premier venues in the nation. Umphrey’s McGee and the Disco Biscuits have been around for 12 and 15 years respectively and couldn’t fill Red Rocks with a bunch of support acts in tow this summer.

Regardless of what you think of PL’s music – and there are quite a few haters out there who feel he doesn’t do enough on stage – Smith has made a connection with music fans and has built his brand on the back of relentless gigging and freely distributed albums. Now that Pretty Lights has reached this high level of success so quickly, the hard part will be keeping it up for the next few years and onwards. The Samples sold out Red Rocks back in the mid ’90s and their career went downhill from there, so future growth isn’t a given. We’re rooting for Pretty Lights to take it to the next level.

Pretty Lights @ Roseland Theatre – April 13, 2010

Back in Sacred Heart grammar school, Mr. Shields was the roving music teacher. With an upright Baldwin piano on wheels, Mr. Shields would twice weekly enter the classroom to instruct us on the finer points of his interpretation of music. “What is music?” he would ask at the beginning of each class. “Music is sound”, we’d answer in unison. “That has what three qualities? he would ask. “Rhythm, melody and harmony” we would echo back. Twice a week. This was the prerequisite quizzing we got before being allowed to explore the delicate intricacies of “Kumbaya” and the choral arrangement of Sounds Of Silence.

I probably have Mr. Shields at least partially to thank for my open mind regarding music. Between the classical and folk introduced to me on that old Baldwin and what there was around my home, I pretty much was open for anything. I’ve been to dozens of symphony concerts, choral masses, open mike nights and one person shows over the years and, with very few exceptions, really appreciated the music. Hip hop, rap, techno, emo, death metal, and quartets of both the string and barber shop varieties, I’ve seen a little of everything.

But as I have aged, I’ve become a tad more selective in spending my entertainment dollars, gravitating more toward the solid rock and singer songwriter acts that fall in my comfort zone. I had my ‘Rave Phase’ back in the mid nineties. We’d hook up with a bunch of friends and head off to a warehouse in the industrial section. We’d take E and dance for hours and drink like fish, stay out till three and have a great time. The DJ’s played house and techno and kept the party going in shifts, never letting the beat drop. Mainstream acceptance of the rave culture was still years away and computer geeks of their day were still figuring out that they could make wonderful music with the assistance of a powerful laptop and a file full of samples.

Fast forward about 17 years. I’m at the Roseland Theater in Portland for Pretty Lights. The guy in front of me in line is expounding to his two friends about how this should be fun, cause DJs aren’t really musicians. They only use other’s music, he was saying, almost like parasites. They can’t write their won stuff, they just distort other’s hard work. This guy won’t shut up. In his dubious opinion, he was about to witness the musical equivalent of summer reruns on shuffle. If I may quote no less a scholar than Bugs Bunny, ‘What an ignoraminous!”

READ ON for more from A.J. on Pretty Lights in PDX…

A week ago today, I was just waking up on the MSC Poesia about to enjoy the final day of Jam Cruise 8. Over the course of the trip’s five days, I caught one outstanding musical performance after another. For this week’s B List I’ve put together my thoughts on my ten favorite sets of Jam Cruise 8.

Now, as a disclaimer, I didn’t see every set so I can only comment on what I saw. I’ve heard wonderful things about the Sexual Chocolate set and the STS9 theater set, but I wasn’t there. I tried to catch as much music as I could, but I couldn’t see it all. With that said, let’s get down to business…

10. Ryan Montbleau Band – Pool Deck [LiveDownloads]

[Photo by Jeffrey Dupuis]

HT faves the Ryan Montbleau Band got on the boat by the skin of their teeth after an extremely close “Vote to the Boat” competition. The Boston-based band made the most of the opportunity all week long, showing up at various events and in the Jam Room each night. Ryan and the boys kicked off the action on Monday morning with a fantastic set that included old favorites, a new tune and a couple of slamming covers. Watch out for these guys in 2010 as they are ready to take the scene by storm.

9. Dark Star Orchestra – Theater [LiveDownloads]

[Photo by Dave Vann]

Once the show started off with a mixed bag featuring Shakedown Street, Next Time You See Me and Stir It Up, it was pretty clear DSO was playing an original setlist for their theater set on Jam Cruise 8. While this is clearly a band in transition, the connection between former long-time band mates Jeff Mattson and Rob Barraco was clear throughout. There were a number of people I talked to who hadn’t given DSO much of a shot in the past, but enjoyed the hell out of themselves in the theater this night.

READ ON for Scotty’s favorite eight performances of Jam Cruise 8…

Words and Images: Tim Hara

As we exited our cab outside of the Park West in Chicago, we were immediately approached by a fan asking us if we had any extras for the sold out Pretty Lights show. Then another, then another, then another. Dozens of kids braved the miserable cold and rain with their fingers raised high in the air with hopes of scoring a ticket to what seemed like the hottest show in town. Sadly, almost all of them would get shut out.

Yonder Mountain String Band was playing at the House of Blues Chicago, but you wouldn’t have known it. All people were talking about for weeks was whether they had a ticket for Pretty Lights and how they were going to get in if they didn’t have one. Desperation led to some fans offering up to five times face value for a single ticket. I hadn’t seen this kind of pandemonium for a show in this city for a long time. We passed all the unfortunate, ticket less fans and entered the venue knowing that the evening was truly going to be something special.

Derek Vincent Smith, AKA Pretty Lights, creates infectious beats that seem to appeal to a wide audience. His music is so unique that even his biggest fans have a hard time describing exactly what it is that they are listening to. He blends a heavy electronic sound that walks the line of glitch, electro or even dubstep with a combination of samples that run the gamut of soul to funk to rap. The result is a live performance of non-stop dance music that truly provides something for everyone.

READ ON for more from Tim on Pretty Lights in Chicago…